


Photographic Memories

by ShinSolo



Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: M/M, Mild Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinSolo/pseuds/ShinSolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And even though Shannon had never actually said the words, Jared knew from that moment that Shannon’s answer would have been the same if Jared had been the one to ask him. He could tell by the way he had hugged him and his tears had left permanent marks in Jared’s mind in the same way they would have stained diary pages or thumb-worn photographs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photographic Memories

For Shannon’s birthday that year, Jared had built him his very own darkroom. It had taken him more than two weeks of research and shopping before he had finally managed to obtain an enlarger, timer, and easel that he considered good enough for his brother, and another week to install all of the bulbs, stands and wires needed to finish the transformation from guest room to photo-lab. But the look on Shannon’s face when Jared showed, it to him made it worth it.  
  
A few months later Shannon installed a light outside the door to let Jared and whatever house guests they might have at the time know when he did not want to be disturbed, and the darkroom soon became Shannon’s own private sanctuary. He no longer just went in there to develop his photographs, but to think as well.  
  
And as time passed, he began spending more time in the darkroom alone than he spent with his friends and family.  
  
Jared often found himself sliding down the wall outside the room, imagining what Shannon must look like bent over the various developing trays while surrounded by the false warmth of red lights. He would sit on the floor, back against the door, for hours simply wondering what Shannon thought about when he was inside and the privacy light was switched on, but he never found the courage to ask.  
  
It was at these times that Jared would let his mind drift back to various conversations that Shannon and he had shared in their life. Some of them made me smile, other made him sad. Some he could barely remember, but others he knew he would never be able to forget.  
  
“Do you consider yourself straight?” Shannon had asked one day while the two of them were eating breakfast.  
  
“As in . . . together? Or as in heterosexual?” Jared responded after thinking the question over for a moment.  
  
“Both, I suppose.”  
  
Jared had locked eyes with his brother and shrugged.  
  
“Sometimes, I don’t know what I am, Shan,” he had said sincerely. “But I also don’t think it really matters, y’know? I don’t think it matters what I am . . . or what you are. Gay, straight, bi, transgendered,” – He smiled. – “I would love you all the same, and I’d like to hope you’d do the same with me.”  
  
And even though Shannon had never actually said the words, Jared knew from that moment that Shannon’s answer would have been the same if Jared had been the one to ask him. He could tell by the way he had hugged him and his tears had left permanent marks in Jared’s mind in the same way they would have stained diary pages or thumb-worn photographs.  
  
Not a month after that – Jared recalled – Shannon had closed the book he had been reading at the time and asked another question.  
  
“Do you love me?”  
  
At first, Jared had been taken back by the question. He did not understand why Shannon even felt like he needed to ask such a thing, but he also knew that there had to be more behind the questions than first meet the ears. Shannon rarely asked a question that had an obvious answer.  
  
“Do you love me?” Jared had thrown back, studying his brother for any sign that might have helped him figure out what was going on behind his brown eyes.  
  
“More than you’ll ever know,” Shannon had whispered, his words so soft that Jared wondered if Shannon had even meant for him to hear them.  
  
But Jared had heard them, and after a moment of silence he had responded, “I think you’d be surprised.”  
  
That night they had fallen asleep on top of the covers on Shannon’s bed, shoes and all. That had also been the first time Jared had ever awoken in the middle of the night to the flash of a camera.  
  
But from that moment on, Jared could not help but notice that something seemed to be missing inside of Shannon, like a photograph that had been ripped in half. No matter how much time you spend matching up the edges and tapping it together, there will always be bits of white showing around the tear.   
  
Jared was pulled out of his memories by the electric clicking of the hall light as Shannon switched it off from the inside the darkroom. And he knew that if he did not act fast, Shannon would catch him on the floor again and ask him that same question that Jared never had an answer for – Are you okay?  
  
From the gap between the partially closed bathroom door and the frame, Jared watched Shannon leave the darkroom and then trudge down the hallway to his bedroom. And when the door to Shannon’s room shut and the light went off, Jared did something he had never before dared to do. He stepped into Shannon’s sanctuary.  
  
When the door shut behind him, Jared was submerged in total darkness and it took him a moment to locate the light switch that would bathe the room in red light.  
  
The room had not changed much from when Jared had created it. In fact, the only things that had not been there before were the rows and rows of clothes line that Shannon had hung from one side of the room to the other. Each string had about two dozen pictures hanging from it, and along the far wall were several baskets full of photographs that had already dried.  
  
Jared smiled to himself as he picked up a stack of the photos and flipped through them, but his breath caught in his throat when he noticed that all of the photographs shared a common subject.  
  
Every single one of them was of him.  
  
There were pictures of him joking around with Matt. There were pictures of him in Tomo’s kitchen with more flour in his hair than in the mixing bowl. There were pictures of him daydreaming, his eyes fixed on some unknown object as if he were in a trance. There were pictures of him on various sets and countless movie premiers that Shannon had insisted on attending.   
  
There were pictures he remembered Shannon taking, but there were also the pictures that he knew he had not given Shannon permission to take, the pictures that made his eyes widen in shock, the pictures that Jared did not even understand how Shannon had managed to capture.  
  
Somehow, Shannon had managed to take numerous pictures of Jared in his own bedroom, pictures of Jared during his most private moments – some of him asleep, some of him sitting on his bed with his acoustic guitar in his lap, some of him in the process of pulling a shirt over his head, and some of him engaging in other much more personal bedroom activities.  
  
But the ones that baffled Jared the most were the ones of him laying in the middle of the hallway floor, his hair spread out behind him, his arms folded behind his head, the light in the hall signifying that Shannon was busy at work inside his darkroom.  
  
The floor boards outside the door creaked and the door to the darkroom opened, but Jared did not even realize it until Shannon’s hands closed over his, took the pictures from him, and silently placed them back in the basket that Jared had found them.  
  
“Shannon . . . I . . .” Jared started to say, but his brother shook his head.  
  
“Just . . . Don’t say anything, please. I know. I shouldn’t have . . .” – He bit his bottom lip and looked at the floor, unable to meet Jared’s eyes. – “It won’t happen again. I promise.”  
  
Jared watched his brother, his eyes drinking in even the slightest of Shannon’s motions and memorizing the way the red light made his skin glow.  
  
“Shannon?” He asked after an unsure silence had formed around them. “Do you love me?”  
  
Shannon looked up at Jared, his eyes locking with his for a moment before he had to look away, his hands almost trembling.  
  
“More than you’ll ever know,” he finally said, reciting the same exact word he had the first time he had answered that question.  
  
But this time when Jared gave his reply, he did not have to think about what he should say. He simply wrapped his arms around his brother and said, “I think you’d be surprised, Shannon. Because I do know, and it’s okay.” – He tightened his hold on him, tears forming in eyes. – “It’s okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written 03/10/2007.


End file.
